Holmes At Christmas
by Red Fiona
Summary: When Sherlock invited Watson to join him for Christmas, John couldn't resist going. He wanted to know if it was as bad as he imagined it, or if it was worse.


Title: Holmes At Christmas  
>Disclaimer: The characters are not mine, they belong to Arthur Conan-Doyle, if they haven't slipped out of copyright by now, which given the explosion of Holmes-related stuff I think they might have. However, this particular version is all the BBC's. No money is being made from this fanfic.<br>Fandom: Sherlock  
>Characters: John Watson, Sherlock Holmes, Mycroft Holmes, Anthea and Mrs. Holmes.<br>Rating: PG-12  
>ContentWarnings: Gen Christmas fic. Mild peril.  
>Summary: When Sherlock invited Watson to join him for Christmas, John couldn't resist going. He wanted to know if it was as bad as he imagined it, or if it was worse.<p>

John was trying to type Sherlock's latest adventures into something readable, not just readable, but publishable. There was a niche market for true crime books, and if John could get himself published he might have more money coming in so he wouldn't have to sponge off Sherlock like he was having to now. It was, at least, a plan.

The problem was trying to convey the tone that Sherlock used, where something that really should have been a question was an order instead. It should probably have been called the Holmesian imperative, since Mycroft did the exact same thing.

"Come home with me for Christmas." Anyone else would have asked if their flatmate had plans for Christmas and then suggested that they go with them, rather than demanding that they did.

"I might have plans."

"Sarah has gone home to her parents, and you weren't invited." John waited for the explanation. He preferred it when Sherlock didn't use his talents on his personal life, but had come to accept that his preferences didn't seem to matter much to Sherlock. "She left on Saturday. That was the day the package on the mantelpiece went. You told me that in no circumstance were any of my experiments to go near it, which isn't anything you've ever done for any of your own things. So it isn't yours, you've not borrowed if from anyone because you haven't met any of the friends you are on borrowing terms with, not that you have many of those since you joined the army. It was therefore probably a gift. It wasn't for Harry since you bought her a woolly jumper, unless you've taken to wearing clothes from the womenswear section of River Island. You know I don't do gifts, and you've already given Donovan, Molly and Lestrade theirs at the station Christmas party that you insisted on attending. That only leaves Sarah. You have already given her the present - risky choice, giving her a book, because you never know what people will enjoy reading - so you're not going to give it her on the day, which you would do if you were going with her. Therefore, you are at a loose end and available to come with me."

The sad thing was that Sherlock was right. Sarah had gone to her parents for Christmas, and neither of them was anywhere near ready to do the spending-Christmas-together-with-your-parents thing. That left Christmas with Harry, or rather, Christmas with Harry and several bottles of whisky and he really couldn't be bothered with another round of 'why I left Clare', when Clare was the best thing that had happened to Harry.

Mrs. Hudson had gone to visit her sister in Bognor Regis, which left John with no plans whatsoever. Plus, he couldn't resist actually seeing what Christmas at the Holmeses was like after Mycroft mentioned it. He wanted to know if it was as bad as he imagined it, or if it was worse. "What will I need to pack?"

They arrived at four on Christmas Eve, after a train journey that made up in crowdedness what it lacked in distance. They travelled from the train station in a cab, and, after paying the extortionate time and a half fare, John decided he was spending far too much money on cabs. It was all well and good for Sherlock to go swaning around in a black cab all the time, but come New Years it was time for an austerity drive for John Watson. Trains, buses and the tube were the way forward.

Sherlock left him to pay the tip, swearing that he had no small change on him, but it seemed as though Sherlock was trying to quickly check out the house before going in.

John had no idea what to expect. The house itself was one of those big Victorian jobs, three floors, judging by the windows. It had a neat garden, no sign of garage and no car on the drive. There was nothing exceptional about it in any way.

"It looks as though we're in luck. We're the first to arrive." Sherlock rang the doorbell.

A woman answered the door. She was about John's height, with curly grey hair and blue eyes. "Hello."

"Hello Mother." Sherlock strode in, leaving John trailing in his wake.

John put his small case down and extended his hand. "John Watson."

"Sheridan Vernet," replied Sherlock's mother.

The name sounded familiar. "Like the actress?"

"She is the actress." Sherlock's voice came through loud and clear from what had to be the sitting room.

"Be nice, dear." She had a carrying voice, like her son. "There are few enough people that remember me, let's not shout at them." Sherlock made one of his more dismissive noises. "Do come in, John."

There was another knock at the door. It was Mycroft, who double-kissed his mother's cheeks, and with him was ... "Hello, Anthea." More than that, it was Anthea without her Blackberry.

"Hello, John."

"Oh you know each other. How nice. It's always more awkward when guests don't know each other. Do go on in." She almost shooed them into the living room. It was a big room. The walls were taken up with wooden shelves, probably oak, filled with books. There was a sofa and two chairs, made from the same sort of wood.

Mycroft and Anthea sat on the sofa; Sherlock sent them a particularly poisonous look, the kind Anderson normally got. He insisted that John sit in one of the chairs, and he sat down on the floor next to it. He looked, for all the world, like a sullen teenager.

"Cushion." John gave Sherlock the cushion from the chair and watched him get comfortable.

Mrs. Vernet was about to sit down but changed her mind. "You'll all want a cup of tea, won't you?"

John and Anthea tried to tell her that they'd do it, but they couldn't change her mind. Mycroft and Sherlock stayed quiet. Anthea followed Mrs. Vernet out to carry the mugs in. The atmosphere in the room was frosty at best.

Sherlock looked up at him, and sounded annoyed. "This is all your fault, John."

"What?" John was confused.

"If you hadn't made such a fuss getting into the house,"

John couldn't remember causing a fuss, just basic introductions. "It's called common courtesy."

Sherlock continued. "Because of the fuss, Mycroft managed to get in here ahead of us, and has taken my sofa. He is aware that it is my sofa, and that I will get my revenge." Mycroft was about to reply when Mrs. Vernet returned and the frosty silence descended again.

Mrs. Vernet must have noticed and she, John and Anthea made small talk, which featured Mrs. Vernet questioning them, Anthea lying through her teeth and John trying to keep up. Soon even that small amount of conversation petered out.

John was trying to study Mrs. Vernet, without being noticed, details for this putative book. He knew he wouldn't succeed, Sherlock at least would probably spot him doing it, but it gave him something to do. She looked a lot like Sherlock. Mycroft, on the other hand, looked like the man in the portrait on the wall near the window. John wondered if this was the never-mentioned Holmes senior, but he didn't want to ask.

That line of interest having been used up, John started to look at the books.

"The books on the left are mostly military history, wars and suffering. They are Mycroft and my father's." John had forgotten about Sherlock, sitting on the floor. "The books in the middle are fiction and inherently pointless." John would love to have known how Sherlock knew he had been looking at the books. "If you want to read something useful, the books on the left are mostly mine, and have actual information in them." John got up and had a look. "While you're looking, bring me the book bound in green, third shelf down, 'Griffiths on Poisons'. It's not the most thorough book but it has a rare understanding of using poisons to kill."

He was going to indulge Sherlock, just this once, "what's so special about it?"

"Griffiths was the Camden poisoner, he killed his wife and children, each with a different poison. I like to see if I can tell that from the writing."

"Sherlock, you're being morbid." Mycroft spoke archly, then sipped his tea daintily, finger crooked. There were times when John refused to believe Mycroft was any more real than his brother was. It was only that other people spoke to them too, and had the same reaction to them as John, that convinced John that they weren t just excessively detailed hallucinations.

Mrs. Vernet must have seen this sort of argument grow into something far worse before because she decided to talk to John about literature to drown out the bickering of her sons. It wasn t something John knew a lot about, reading was never his thing, but he tried to keep up his end of the conversation. Anthea was being no use; she d reacquired her Blackberry and was glued to it as usual. Sherlock and Mycroft appeared to be engaged in what was either a staring contest or a silent battle of wills.

There weren t any more outbursts before dinner.

Dinner passed quietly too, but John got the feeling that quietly was good with this household. He and Anthea managed to convince Sheridan that they would do the washing up and the door closed shut. The walls were thick; they must have been because they couldn't hear the continuation of the argument that had started as the Holmes brothers were leaving the kitchen.

John tried to make conversation. "Hello again."

"Hello." Anthea was playing this like Geoffrey Boycott trying to complete an innings, straight bats and leaves.

John was stuck for something to say. "Fancy meeting you here."

Anthea looked at him with that condescending expression she always used on him. It shouted 'are you serious?' She looked like she was running through a list of possible replies. "I was hoping to use a better name for myself this time."

"Yeah. Sorry about that." She handed him another plate to dry. Except he wasn't sorry, not really, because fair's fair and she'd made him look like a fool before.

"I'm sure you are." And she knew he didn't mean it.

The rest of the evening went by in a state of advanced tension. You never knew what was going to set either of them off, for goodness sake, there'd almost been a fight over the trifle, and Sherlock didn't even like trifle. John wondered if it was too late to ring Harry up and ask what she was doing for New Years.

John was very pleased when it came time to turn in. He was less pleased when Anthea went into the same bedroom as Mycroft. Just because he had Sarah didn't mean he couldn't be jealous. They carried on to the attic, where Sheridan turned to Sherlock. "Before you ask, it's been left as it was."

"Exactly?"

"Exactly." Fondly exasperated best described Sheridan's tone. She turned to John. "It'll be a bit of a tight squeeze, but I'm sure you'll manage. I would have brought the extra sofa up, but you know what he's like about people touching his things."

John nodded, understanding. There'd be piles of stuff and you'd tidy them up so the place was liveable and then Sherlock would explode because you'd moved something vital and he knew where it had been before and where had you moved it to.

"I'll leave you to it. What would you like for breakfast? Sherlock hasn't said what you normally have. He forgets, you see, that the rest of us can't live on thin air the way he does."

John assured her that whatever everyone else was having would be fine with him, and he was grateful for her kindness and said goodnight as she left.

They heard the stairs creak as she walked down.

"Oh thank goodness. Mother is wonderful but she does like to fuss." Sherlock could tell John wasn't paying full attention. "She's not sleeping with him you know. She's his bodyguard." John was confused, bodyguards didn't look like that. "Even if I didn't know, look at her shoes." Sherlock continued to rattle at the cupboards. "She was lying, she's moved things. How can I be expected to find things when other people insist on tidying up?" There was the sound of frantic rearranging. "Anyway, no woman would voluntarily sleep with my brother, and he couldn't afford her even if she was willing to be paid for it."

John looked around for a sleeping bag.

"What are you doing now?" As far as John could tell, there was no way Sherlock could have known what he was doing. All of Sherlock's concentration appeared to be focussed on whatever he was re-arranging to his liking.

John continued to search. "Sleeping bag?"

"Why?" John would have thought it was obvious, but little everyday things like bedding were exactly the sort of thing that Sherlock didn't pick up on. "You'll be sleeping in the bed." It looked far too narrow to fit both of them comfortably. "If Mother heard of a guest sleeping on the floor, she'd have a fit, and it's not worth it." John changed into his nightwear, or his version of it, which was a grungy old khaki green t-shirt and a pair of blue and white striped boxers.

Despite feeling awkward, the way you do in a stranger's bed, not that Sherlock was but that was the nearest explanation for the way John felt, John fell asleep quickly. Sherlock was still rattling around, but John had become accustomed to that. If he hadn't, he'd never have got a moment's sleep in Baker Street.

John didn't want to get up the next morning. He wasn't a morning person anyway, and he knew all he was likely to get was the next salvo in the Mycroft versus Sherlock war.

Breakfast was quiet, possibly because Sherlock didn't get up. This, apparently, wasn't unexpected. Mycroft and Anthea were hidden behind their computer gadgets and papers.

The Holmes' didn't do Christmas, that much was clear. The only seasonal signs were that there was a goose in the oven, and that John was being co-opted into moving the furniture around so that there would be enough seats in the living room for them all to watch the Queen's speech.

Sherlock finally swanned in, dressing gown wrapped around him, not having bothered to get dressed, just in time to watch the Queen's speech.

The Queen is about to wrap up when the television goes dead. John hadn't seen a TV do that, the old 'boop' and narrowing down to a white point, for years.

"Oh fiddlesticks. Of all the times for it finally to go." Sheridan went over to the television set and started to worry at the wires.

"Don't worry. I'm sure we'll be able to watch it on this." Mycroft tried to activate his smart phone. He started to frown at it, and passed it back to Anthea. She tried it to, and, looking equally annoyed, ended up whispering to Mycroft as she shook the phone.

"Sherlock, check the phone." Sherlock looked like he was about to argue. "These things work on submarines, and yet there's no signal." Sherlock was a blur as he crossed the room.

"The line's dead." Sherlock confirmed. "John, check your mobile."

John's hand was already on his mobile before Mycroft could complain. "If these," Mycroft waved his phone at Sherlock, "don't work, do you really expect his knock-off Nokia to work?"

"I'm hoping that whoever it is has only thought of cutting off the house's lines and jamming your 3G signal."

Sherlock's logic made sense, unfortunately, the news John had was bad. "No such luck. My mobile's dead too."

"We've got to get Mummy to safety, I don't know which of London's lawless _you've_brought with you." Only Mycroft and Sherlock could start bickering at a time like this.

"This is one of your 'friends', Mycroft; sadly, the average criminal I deal with doesn't have the brains to do all of this." John could vouch for Sherlock's upset about that. Sherlock had spent half his time since he defeated Jim Moriarty, however temporarily, staring out of the window, muttering about the pointlessness of it all, and how everyone was being stupid deliberately to wind him up. He was even less bearable in those moods than usual.

"Whoever it is, why have they done it, and what are we going to do?" John thought he'd better bring them back to the problem before they started arguing even more.

Sherlock responded first. "If they've gone to all this trouble to stop us communicating with the outside world, they want us isolated. They plan on killing us, probably, or kidnapping us, which is the same thing in the long run. That means at least one of them is probably close by."

Mycroft carried on instead of Sherlock. "I propose that you and John scout round outside, capture any of them that you can find and then we'll find out what this is all about." John was about to point out that there'd be two of them, unarmed, against an unknown number of probably armed assailants. Mycroft did that almost mind-reading trick that Sherlock normally pulled. "Anthea, give John your spare revolver."

Anthea might as well have been a different person. She was standing, watchful, guarding the obvious entry points into the room, with a gun she'd produced from goodness knew where. She nodded and left the room. She returned quickly. Her spare revolver was the same as John's service revolver, kept in perfect condition, even though it was her spare. It was exactly what John would have wanted in this situation and he took it gratefully.

Sherlock had used this break in the conversation to get dressed. They were as ready as they were going to be.

There were all sorts of thoughts that were supposed to be flying around John's head. He'd heard them described, fear, uncertainty, wondering exactly what he'd gotten himself into following Sherlock. He didn't have any of them, all he felt was the clarity that only came with action.

They stood ready by the back door. "Why this way?" asked John.

"If whoever it was had just wanted to kill Mycroft, they'd have burst in and killed us all by now. Therefore, they either wish to escape detection, or they wish to have him alive for some purpose, in which case they want time with him. Attacking from the front doesn't suit either of those two things, because no matter how unfeasibly stupid and unobservant the average suburban citizen is, or how over-fed and stupefied they are due to turkey today, an armed gang would draw some sort of notice. In many ways, it being Christmas is a double-edged sword for our attackers, yes, no one will be about, but because many people are at home, the number of possible witnesses is far higher than it normally would be."

Sherlock slowly opened the door, with John providing cover.

They were outside; ready to move on anything that seemed out of place.

The garden was unexpectedly large. It was as wide as the house, but probably twice as long again. There was even a swing seat, covered in plastic for the winter. It would probably be quite nice in the summer, but right now, John wished it was smaller, and had fewer trees. This was an ambusher's paradise.

Watching, alert for any movement, John was used to this, his blood sang with adrenaline.

They crept forward.

They both spotted the broken branch at the same time, and with silent communication born of experience, they pounced, John coming in from below and Sherlock from above. They had their man face down on the ground in a jiffy. He stopped struggling when he felt John's gun between his shoulder blades. Sherlock tied his hands together and between them they dragged the man into the house.

Anthea locked the door behind them as Mycroft looked the man over. "Down to the cellar with him." The man didn't resist in an obvious manner, but was blatantly making himself heavier, and it was a struggle to get him down there. Sherlock tied him to a table and chair he'd set up, then they went back upstairs.

Anthea immediately moved to stand in front of it. She'd changed into trousers and a t-shirt, and was standing to attention. Now that John knew, he didn't know how he'd missed that Anthea was military.

"SAS?"

Anthea smiled. "SBS. Protecting Mr. Holmes is a job you want done properly." John could easily imagine that, Mycroft's enemies started with his brother.

Sherlock and Mycroft came back from the corner they'd been standing talking in. "John, go and see what Mother is up to. If we leave her alone too long, she'll probably start trying to serve Christmas pudding to the captive."

There was something in the tone that Sherlock used that worried John, something unsettling, but John didn't think twice about going to the kitchen. It wasn't that they'd left Mrs. Vernet to fend for herself, they'd left Anthea stationed outside the door while they'd gone out hunting. Originally Anthea was supposed to be in the kitchen with her, but she'd come out almost as soon as she'd gone in, muttering something about dervishes, knives and goose.

John knocked on the door.

"Come in, there's no need to knock, I've already put the silver in the pudding." John went in. "Oh, it's you, John. I do hope the goose isn't spoilt. I've had it turned down since we've been interrupted but I hope we'll be able to have Christmas dinner soon." John wasn't sure what to say. She'd been in the living room when this all happened, she had to realise that it meant that there probably would be no Christmas dinner. "You have no idea what it's like trying to cook for those two. Neither of them eats enough, or anything at all really in-between Mycroft's endless diets - you will try and make Sherlock stop teasing him about his weight, he's rather sensitive about it - and Sherlock just doesn't seem to eat. He does eat when he's at home, doesn't he?"

The end of that rush of words was directed straight at John, complete with a blue-eyed stare as strong as steel. There was a lot of his mother in Sherlock.

"Um, yes. Of course." It may have been a lie, but at least it got him out of some trouble.

The way that Sheridan was chopping the vegetables, and the sheer amount of them, suggested that Sherlock wasn't far wrong when he said that Sheridan might try to feed their captive. John felt awkward standing there, so he went over to help.

Between them, the meal was soon ready, which only caused more problems. Anthea was going to stay outside the kitchen, standing guard over the prisoner, but Sheridan wasn't going to stand for that. The next solution suggested was that they take turns watching the prisoner, so everyone would get to spend part of the meal sitting down.

"No, I will not have Christmas dinner resembling musical chairs." Sheridan had put her foot down.

That was that out then. A compromise, suggested by Anthea, was that they have the meal in the hallway, which Sheridan thought was "a marvellous wheeze".

Then came the problem of the prisoner.

Sheridan was all for sending him down some of the Christmas dinner, or at least goose sandwiches. Mycroft and Sherlock pulled her over to one side, and John and Anthea deliberately tried not to overhear. They looked at their shoes instead, mostly, in John's case, because he thought he might have started laughing, which he knew was ridiculous, but the situation was so off-the-wall. All they could hear was snippets of what appeared to be an entirely circular argument.

"People who would have tried to kill us don't need to be given Christmas dinner with all the trimmings." That was Mycroft.

"I'm not suggesting that, but giving him a few sandwiches isn't going to hurt us."

"He was trying to kill you, mother." And now Sherlock was agreeing with his brother, but Sheridan was adamant.

"I don't care. And if you think you're going to tell me what I will and won't do in my own house, you've got another thing coming."

John found it vital to concentrate very hard on his shoes right then. It was such a very Mum thing to say. He had no idea how his own mother would have reacted in the same situation, when he tried to imagine it, he couldn't, his mind went utterly blank and his imagination failed him. Then again, it did that when he tried to think about how he would describe Sheridan to people. Not that it mattered because no one would believe him anyway, because she wasn't the wolf that everyone assumed had brought Sherlock up. Not unless the wolves had a hospitality division, anyway.

The argument ended with Anthea being given a plate of sandwiches to take down, and John being made to swear he would never mention this to anyone by Mycroft. John managed to separate Sherlock from the rest of the shortly after that, so he can ask the questions that have been bothering him since they captured the potential assassin.

"Why haven't we made a run for it, or at least tried to find a way of contacting the outside world?" John was already planning how they'd do it. He'd been caught in ambushes before, he knew what he was doing.

Sherlock answered. "They've cut the phone lines of everyone in the area, and if they can jam our phones, it's probably affecting the rest of the street too. If we go outside we put ourselves at greater risk, particularly when we don't know how far we will have to go to get help. We also don't know how many of them there are. He's not alone, but he's being remarkably reticent about how large his group is or why they've attacked. But we're working on that." John decided not to ask any more questions about that.

Anthea came back up to have some of her Christmas dinner, and she, Mycroft and Sherlock rotated guard duty. Sherlock vanished down to the cellar to join Mycroft after eating a minimum, which was really his loss, because it was good food. He returned as Anthea had finished her meal. He whispered something to Anthea, and just looked at John, as though he expected him to be a mind-reader. There was something serious about his expression, it made John nervous.

Sheridan started to tidy the plates so John helped, which seemed like a good idea until the kitchen door was locked behind them.

"John, I take it you know why we've just been locked in the kitchen?"

John didn't know how to respond, Sherlock, and Mycroft, hadn't seen fit to enlighten him about what they were up to. That was probably so that he, or more likely Sheridan, wouldn't panic about something. Goodness knew what though. "I'm sure it's nothing important."

Sheridan raised an eyebrow. Yes, the terrifying stare definitely ran in the family. "I'm not quite as stupid as my sons think I am. Then again, I'm not sure you could be as stupid as my sons think most people are and still be breathing. Please don't lie to me."

"They haven't told me either. Probably because it's dangerous and they don't want us to worry."

Sheridan wasn't satisfied, not with John's answer, but with her sons's reasoning. "Not realising, of course, that that's only going to make us worry more."

"Exactly."

"I know they're not most people's idea of good sons, but they do care for me, in their own way."

"I can swear to that." He'd been in the middle of arguments where "Mummy" was held up as the ultimate authority on the matter.

"I'm quite pleased that Sherlock has you." John couldn't be bothered with arguing against the having. "It's good for him to have a friend. I know they're both impossible, but they're good boys really."

They exchanged a sort of awkward small talk, where John was desperate to find out more, but didn't want to push too hard.

"I can't really complain," Sheridan was warming to her theme, "I suppose I spoilt them rotten. It just seemed to be wrong to force them to be like everyone else. I taught them all the tricks I knew so that if they wanted to they could be but I'm pleased they didn't. I think their father would have approved. He was a brilliant man, but very difficult to get along with." She was getting far too close to the window. If someone was going to attack them, that would be the obvious way. He guided her to a chair that was out of the possible line of fire. "Don't marry a mathematician, John; they get so caught up in numbers. I'm ever so glad that neither of my sons followed him into his profession."

"Is it his portrait on the wall?"

"Yes. He died when they were quite young. They had nothing to do with it, I hasten to add. I know you wouldn't even have considered that, but people talk. What about your parents?"

"My Dad's a huge fan of yours." John was aware that he may have committed a faux pas.

"Don't worry, John, I'm beyond the age of vanity, I'm just pleased people remember me."

"I saw you act on stage, once. You were the Nurse in Romeo and Juliet at the Apollo. My Dad didn't want to go until he heard you were in it and afterwards, all he said was that he didn't see why they didn't have you as Juliet."

"And what did you think of it."

"I was too caught up in Jenny Linden who was sitting next to me to remember much. Sorry."

"That's probably the best way to watch Romeo and Juliet."

It was only when they heard gunfire that Watson realised he'd been waiting for it. He tried to estimate the distance from the kitchen to the sound, to know how close Sherlock was. Or Anthea rather, he recognised the bark of an army issue revolver. He wished he was out there with Sherlock, protecting him, because Sherlock didn't have a gun, as far as he knew, and while Sherlock was brilliant at close quarters, there was a certain safety in lead bullets.

The gunfire stopped, and was followed by the sound of fighting, probably hand to hand. Watson felt more confident that Sherlock, and Anthea, could handle this. But still, he, more than anyone else, knew that fighting didn't ever go the way you expected.

And then there was silence.

John was used to the way adrenaline hit him, used to his body reacting. He didn't hold his breath, his stomach didn't drop, but everything went sharp.

He waited on edge for any sign that Holmes was alright.

The back door opened, and was shut firmly. "Sheridan, I want you to take your sharpest kitchen knife, and hide in the pantry. If anyone who isn't me tries to get in, stab them. You'll know it's me, because I'll knock twice and say 'Nurse'." If John had known if the street had been secured he would have sent her out that way, because anyone that over-powered Sherlock, Mycroft, Anthea and himself was not going to be stopped for long by a kitchen knife, but it was the best that he could think of at short notice.

There was a knock on the kitchen door.

"Watson, it's Mycroft. Open the door."

"Is Sherlock there?"

"Yes. I don't see what it matters, open the door."

"Bring him to the door." There was the sound of rearrangement, and Mycroft muttering 'I don't see the point in all this.' "Sherlock?"

"John."

"What am I the replacement for?"

Quick as a whip, Sherlock replied. "A skull, you've replaced my skull." John carefully unlocked the door. He was reasonably sure that Sherlock wouldn't have given the right answer if he was being held hostage, not if his mother's safety was on the line, but he was keeping the gun ready just in case. He opened the door, and saw no-one but Sherlock and Mycroft. Looking further out, Anthea was standing guard over another two tied up prisoners.

John almost missed what Sherlock said. "This, Mycroft, is why I'd rather have John here, than all your toy soldiers. He has the brains to assume we might have lost and plan for it."

John smiled as he quickly moved to the cupboard, and gave the signal. Sheridan came out, thankfully not knife point first. "It's good to see you my dears, will you be having pudding?"

Whatever had happened in the garden must have been energetic because even Mycroft had some pudding. Admittedly he ate it with Anthea, quite literally standing guard over their three new prisoners. All the prisoners had gags in their mouths. John wasn't sure if it was to stop them making noise, or to stop Sheridan from trying to feed them too.

Sherlock had left his piece to one side, where it was lying, temptingly within John's reach. Sherlock was instead concentrating on rewiring a walkie-talkie he must have taken from the criminals. "Metropolitan Police? I want an armed unit at _ and I want Inspector Lestrade here too." There was an indistinct crackling in response. Apparently Sherlock could make out words. "It's Sherlock Holmes. And he's not busy with his family at home; he's sleeping off a hangover somewhere in Scotland Yard, because he and his wife have had another row." There was no way Sherlock could know that for sure, but it was probably a good guess.

Given what Sherlock called the person on the other end of the walkie-talkie, the police arrived quickly, especially as it was a full roll out of everyone and everything possible. He was reasonably sure they didn't need that fire engine, particularly when a fleet of imposing black four by fours came to take the prisoners away. Those weren't standard police issue so whoever the attackers were, they must have been after Mycroft. John's suspicions were confirmed when Mycroft started to make his excuses for leaving as the four by fours pulled away.

"Of course, you can leave, my dear. Work must come first. You will remember to visit for New Years. And that goes for you too, Anthea."

"Thank you, Mrs Vernet." Amazingly, Anthea waited until she was out of the door before switching on her Blackberry.

Sheridan came back from the front door. "The invitation is extended to you as well, John, you can even bring my son along if he'll let you." Sherlock just made a harrumphing noise from behind the book he was reading. He was sprawled across the sofa, stretching out as far as he could, to make it quite clear that the sofa was all his. John picked up a book at random. He knew he wasn't going to be able to concentrate, he'd be spending the time trying to fit this Christmas into his new book, he wasn't sure it had a clear enough plot yet, but when Sherlock told him more, or Mycroft, because they were both incorrigible show-offs, maybe it would do. Then again, at the rate that things happened to Sherlock and him, he was probably already looking at a minimum of a second book's worth of adventures.

He was busily thinking of how he could get Mycroft's permission to publish this story when the phone rang. Sheridan picked it up using the extension in the kitchen.

She was still carrying the phone when she came into the living room. "That was your brother. I'm to tell you off, and to inform you that," she changed her voice to a pitch-perfect imitation of Mycroft's, "he's learnt to expect such childishness from you, and no longer even has the energy to upbraid you." Sheridan tutted at Sherlock, as though this was normal.

"Sherlock, what did you do to Mycroft's car?"

"How did you know it was his car I tampered with?"

"With all this going on, we would have noticed it before if it had been anything else." If it was big enough for Mycroft to ring his mother about, it would have been noticed when they swept the place for explosives. Watson hadn't known that there was an app for that. "Mycroft's only just noticed it and the only thing that's changed is that he and Anthea got into their cars."

"That was well deduced. There might be some hope for you yet." John bit back his reply, which would have amounted to 'could you be more condescending?' because it was Sherlock and he could be, and from Sherlock, it was a compliment. "So, about that trifle?"


End file.
